Twitter IPO: Shares up to $50 on day one, almost double initial valuation

When trading on Twitter opened on the New York Stock Exchange the share price had already risen to $45.10 per share, up almost 73 per cent on the company's initial valuation of $26 a share. During the day they went up to a high of $50 per share, up by 92 per cent.

Its market value therefore was raised to a staggering $25 billion (£15.5 billion) in just one day.

Reuters sources claim that investors asked for around 30 times more shares than were actually on offer, even though the company technically loses money at the present time. They were betting on a bright future for the social network.

The $45.10 opening price valued the company at around 22 times Twitter's 2014 forecast sales. That's nearly double the multiple achieved by Facebook and LinkedIn during their public offerings.

"Facebook was so overhyped people felt like they couldn't miss out," said Kenneth Polcari, a senior floor official at O'Neil Securities Inc. "Twitter isn't like that, though you can feel the excitement."